I’ve seen just 3 episodes of Ken Burns’ latest documentary series. I thought his previous series were magnificent, but this one has really touched something deep inside me. The music is powerful enough, with its many moods, ranging from joy and celebration to sorrow and regret, but add the many stories of the musicians who lived those songs, and the effect is extremely powerful.
Seeing the faces of some of the performers triggered memories of a number of trips I used to make to Nashville to attend board meetings of the Presbyterian Appalachian Broadcasting Council. More on that in a later blog.
My love and respect for Johnny Cash has grown by leaps and bounds, and was thrilled to see even the Beatles brought into the act, all of them admiring some of the country stars. I knew they thought highly of the Byrds, but didn’t know about their views of Nashville stars,
It’s late, so I won’t write any more now, except to urge you to watch the series while you can on streaming video. PBS offers the episodes here: https://www.pbs.org/show/country-music/
